Shortly, families across the country will gather to celebrate Christmas. Elves will have been busy making presents for Children, and Santa will be loading his sack. Parents will look forward to the joy on their children’s faces as they unwrap them.
For many teenagers, this joy might take the form of a new computer game to play with friends over the holiday. Maybe Minecraft, Fortnite, or the latest Mario Kart.
Yet if one Liberal Democrat peer has her way, no one under the age of 16 would be able to play an online game that allows them to talk or interact with another player.
Baroness Benjamin is backing a series of illiberal amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
One would:
require all regulated user-to-user services to use highly-effective age assurance measures to prevent children under the age of 16 from becoming or being users.
While the stated intent is to ban under-16s from social media, the definition of a “user-to-user service” under the Online Safety Act 2023 is far broader. It covers almost any service that allows users to create content or communicate online. This includes social media, messaging apps, forums, and, critically for teens (and gamer parents who game with their children), Multiplayer video games.
In practice, this would ban under-16s from:
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